5 Northampton County Communities Plan Recycling

April 10, 1986|by PEG RHODIN, The Morning Call

Five Northampton County communities are developing a recycling program with the help of the Joint Planning Commission, the county Solid Waste Authority and the state Department of Environmental Resources.

The program will be aimed not only at protecting the environment but also at meeting the challenge of soaring landfill costs.

Representatives of three of the communities - Wilson, Glendon and Nazareth - met for the first time with JPC chief planner Allen O'Dell and Carl Gitschier of DER on Tuesday at the county Government Center in Easton. Tatamy and Hanover Township officials sent word they would be unable to attend, O'Dell said.

County Administrator Joseph Zajacek, who with Rodney Applegate of the county Solid Waste Authority also attended the hour-and-a-half-long information session, said they will put together a "work program" over the next eight months.

They will attempt to "identify where there may be recycling centers in existence; purchasers of recyclable materials; what is logical to take out - paper, cans, bottles - and how to separate them," Zajacek said.

The county will incorporate any arrangements on recycling in its overall solid waste plan, he said.

O'Dell said he asked the communities to determine what recycling operations by municipal, civic and private groups may now be in existence, and to estimate how much more material could be recycled as well as the cost and potential savings of expanded recycling.

He said he distributed a "data sheet" on current operations "to give us a feel of what we are working on" and discussed the possibility of ordinances on mandatory separation of discarded material.

O'Dell said the JPC will "compile the information, make an estimate on the tonnage of materials they may have and their options for collecting them" together with possible revenues derived from recycling. Recycling could save from $25 to $35 a ton in landfill costs, he said.

"The ones working on it this year will be a demonstration program" for the rest of the county, he said.

Zajacek pointed out that the state "now is giving incentives with the purchase or funds toward the purchase of equipment if you can help the environment and reduce the waste flow. You have to show you have a program that works and is acceptable to the people." It must, besides, not cut in on the work done by private, non-profit agencies which sell recyclable materials to raise money, he said.

O'Dell said Gitschier went over what grants are available but stressed that recycling must be part of a regional solid waste plan. He emphasized the importance of education and promotion to the successof recycling and warned the communities to "look at the markets and see what they can sell."

He said the next meeting of the group has been tentatively set for 4:30 p.m. May 13 in the County Council meeting room of the Government Center.